Boundaries Podcast Episodes

Welcome to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Today I have with me Arlan Miller. Welcome, Arlan. Hi Matt. It’s good to be here again. Arlan, one of the advantages I think we have on this show, is to take what we learn from the agency and from our clinicians and help share it with the church, and one of those predominant concepts, as I understand it, is understanding one’s boundaries and living within them. 

Most definitely, Matt. And this is a concept and an idea that I have heard probably almost more than any since I’ve been here at the agency and a lot of it is born out of a book called Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. And in that book it just brings out some very important principles about what are limits that we should have in our life, and we can get ourselves in a pretty sideways and unhealthy spot when we don’t understand our boundaries and the boundaries of others. And so that’s the topic that we would like to tackle here with this series. 

We want to provide some of that teaching for the church. So, let’s start, I guess, by saying boundaries is a physical word. We understand boundaries in terms of offense and that type of thing. So, let’s bring some clarity to what we mean by a boundary, but what does that look like in life? 

We have limits. We are not limitless beings with unlimited time, unlimited energy, unlimited resources, unlimited, you know, fill in the blank. But God has designed us in a way that there are 24 hours in the day. We need sleep. We need food. We need time to take a break. So, speaking to God’s creation. He has created boundaries, very physical boundaries in terms of what is me and what is not me. 

Boundaries in the sense of his creation and water and sea and land and so on and so forth. And so, we see he has woven that concept in our framework and our fabric, the concept of a boundary. Yeah. And boundaries are definitional, right? You know, who is Arlan and who is Matt, and also often defines a little bit of the purpose of that object. 

Right. And then the other piece of it, those limits allow us to let the good in and keep the bad out. So, we understand that in a physical way of our bodies are that boundary. But now we’re talking about a relationship or we’re talking about emotionally that it is important that a person has appropriate boundaries. 

And so, we’re going to try to provide some of that teaching. Set us up a little bit with some Scripture here. Did Christ live according to boundaries? We don’t want to stray too far from him. We often lean upon a verse like Matthew 5:42,  that says, give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away. 

And we take that verse, and we use it and we say, okay, see if someone asks, I should give. If someone wants me to do something, I should say yes. You know, or we use the example of Epaphroditus in Philippians that was sick, near to death for the work of Christ. And, if we’re not careful, we can elevate that and say that’s the standard of Christian living, and yet if you take the full counsel of the Scriptures, you see there’s another balance there too. You know, Jesus said something very interesting in John 10. He says that no man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it again. 

I have the choice, right? He chose willingly to do the will of the Father, to come to Earth as a baby, and grow into a man and give his life for our sake. It wasn’t forced upon him. And so, we see out of Christ’s life that he understood boundaries and he lived his life according to those boundaries. 

And even his death on the cross was not an offense to his boundaries. He was not reached into and taken, but he extended himself outward for that service. And that’s the image that we want to cast. I think of the verse, it says it’s more blessed to give than to receive. 

It comes off the tongue nice, doesn’t it? But sometimes we would say, or we would experience that giving is causing burnout in my life, giving is causing anxiety in my life, and so we want to redeem that Scripture. We’re not saying that those Scriptures are wrong, we’re saying there is some good teaching about us that sets those Scriptures free. I like to use this. This is one of those terms where we use the word balance and we use the word tension, right? We’re speaking about the balance. How do we live in a balance where we give and receive, and what’s that healthy piece there? And then we realize that this is going to be a tension in our lives.  

We’re not going to solve this a hundred percent and say, okay, I’ve got it figured out. Perfect. You know, here’s my A+ example of boundaries. We’re going to always live in that tension in the world that we live in between, do I do this, or do I not do that? What’s appropriate, what’s not appropriate? And that’s fine. It’s okay to live in tension.  

So, provide a little bit of example. I think sometimes we understand what healthy boundaries are by understanding what unhealthy boundaries are. So why don’t you start there, Arlan. Maybe give us some illustrations. Okay, let me illustrate to you an unhealthy boundary. 

I’d like to use a couple examples of imagery here to help clarify this. So, if you visualize a soap bubble. My kids love to blow those bubbles during the summer and whatnot, and you see those floating way up there and then pretty soon they pop, and they disappear. We can have loose boundaries in that regard, that someone can quickly push into us and say, do this, do that, and we will always say yes. 

We don’t really have very clearly defined standards or a very clear limit on that, and so people can reach into our boundaries in inappropriate ways. And we’re easily ran over. It’s kind of like a chalk line or a line in the sand. So, let’s say I have a curfew of 9:00 PM in our house, and that’s a line in the sand. And then suddenly the kids come back at 9:15, and you say, well, okay, the curfew’s going to be 9:30. 

Okay? And then suddenly the kids come back at 10:00 PM. That line keeps moving and moving and moving. That’s a loose boundary. Well, let’s contrast that then, Matt, with a very rigid boundary. You know, visualize a bowling ball or something very firm, like a concrete wall. Nothing comes in. Nothing goes out. You can’t dent it, you can’t bend it. It is just a fixed boundary, and it is impossible to penetrate. I cannot reach into that boundary without busting my knuckles. Here’s the, the unfortunate thing about that, Matt, is yes, you will keep the bad out, but you also can keep out the good. 

And you can miss opportunities when God could be using you to do certain things because you have just said, Nope, not going to do it. This is my firm concrete wall type boundary. So, there has to be this wise in between. What’s that look like? Think of the gate in a wall. Sometimes it’s open or sometimes it’s closed, and you can open it and let the good in and you can close it and keep the bad out. 

There’s a wise choice there where you are opening and closing as appropriate. Christ had an appropriate boundary whereby he was able to love because he reached out of his own boundary, and he gave voluntarily. And I think that provides a little bit of hope. As I think about those challenging passages about giving to those that ask of us, and it is more blessed to give than receive, even in my own heart, I might say, boy, I haven’t found that to be the case. 

It can be the case with this appropriate boundary. So, we’re suggesting that there is a learning curve to know how to live with appropriate boundaries. They’re not innate and born, they’re not natural. They have to be groomed, and that’s what we want to offer. Right. And maintained too. Because by nature they will erode, and they will be pushed upon. 

What are the steps here? Help us construct these appropriate boundaries. What are some of the teaching points? Knowing yourself is the first principle. Have a firm foundation of who you are and how God has made you, and that makes some intuitive sense to me. If I’m going to build a boundary around my house, I have to know what my property lines are. 

Yeah. The neighbors would like you to be honest with that. Yeah. The city likes to know that too. If you haven’t discovered that zoning is big on that type of thing. Alright, so knowing oneself or having that wherewithal of who I am, where do we go for that definition of self? 

Arlan, I really like to go to Colossians 1 and there’s some great passages in Colossians 1, but very clearly Paul says there, you are made by him, him being God in Christ and for him, we are made by God for God. That’s our identity. That’s an important foundation to establish, Matt, because if we don’t firmly root ourselves in who we are in God’s eyes, we will start to put a mirror in front of ourselves or other people in front of ourselves and say, I am only how I view myself, or I am only how others view me. 

And we’ll start to be controlled by those views. We become subject to our environment. We become a part of that environment rather than us influencing the environment. I think that’s helpful. You and I have both been in the public school setting for a while and we understand peer pressure and that’s not unique to just the school setting, but the image that I get is the crazy things that kids will do because of what other people think. 

We’re not suggesting, Matt, that others’ opinions don’t matter, that we just are kind of our own little person off in our own little bubble, just me and God and we’re good. But what I would argue is that others’ opinions have a limited and appropriate effect on this. They have the right effect. 

I think that’s helpful, and I think that’s exactly the boundary that we want to put in place so that the outside has its proper effect and not too much or too little. Okay. So that is a little bit about knowing ourselves. We’ve gone to God as being the definition, and we see that, and certainly as a believer in Christ, our identity is even more defined as being a son of his. 

And we’re settled which comes from that sonship. It’s the foundation. Be firmly established in who you are and your identity in Christ and then let’s build upon that and think about other levels here. And this also, I think, gives us a perspective of others. As we engage with others, we realize that, whoa, this other person is not just for my use, that other person is for God’s use. Yeah. And then that provides some context for my interaction with people as well. And if they say no, that’s not because it’s a personal attack on me. It could be because they’re saying yes to God in some other area that’s even more appropriate for them and their use and their talents. 

Let’s move on to the next one, then. Taking responsibility for ourselves. What does that look like? You know, this brings in this idea of reaping what you sow. And you’re responsible for reaping what you’re sowing, but you’re not responsible for reaping what someone else is sowing. Okay? So, a red flag should be going up if I am reaping the consequences of another person, that’s not appropriate. 

You know, somewhere those boundaries have gotten skewed or blurred. Those lines have gotten a little bit blurred. So, if my day has just become harried because I’ve got to run my son’s lunch to school because he forgot it. That might be an indicator that I am bearing the consequence of his forgetfulness. 

Right. There needs to be a lesson learned there. And we need to start pushing towards growth in that area. And what lessons would they learn by the natural consequence? Isn’t that what we’re speaking of? The natural consequences are terrific teachers. They’re great teachers and I can be an overprotective parent. 

I have a 2-year-old son, Covenant. And he is at the stage where he gets into everything. And if I’m not careful, I will try to put him in a bubble and protect him until he is 25. I’ll hear myself say, Covenant, don’t eat the dirt, Covenant, don’t slide down the stairs on that cushion, whereas I should carefully figure out the appropriate boundaries so he can learn certain consequences. 

I’m not saying let them go play on a busy street, but I am saying the consequences are teachers. Well, here’s something that you hear a lot. You might have codependence, for example, where you have a young person who is depending on their folks for certain means, right? And sometimes, what we would hear is that the folks might say, well, I’m confronting them. I’m telling them how important it is that they get this, or they get that. But at the end of the day, that confrontation isn’t as good of a teacher as consequence. Right? And that’s hard, man it’s hard. This is a hard spot to be because we love, and we care, and we want to help. 

There are some passages in Galatians that I think are important to think through and process through. Galatians 6 has two verses seemingly contradictory to each other, right in the same context there. Galatians 6:2 says, bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:5 says just a few verses later, for every man shall bear his own burden. 

You read those and you’re like; this is a contradiction. What’s going on here? If you understand though, in the Greek you’ve got two very different words going on there in verse two. Bear one another’s burdens. That word is talking about a boulder, a very large, heavy thing that you can’t carry by itself. 

Whereas in Galatians 6:5 for every man shall bear his own burden. That word is talking about like a nap sack or your daily lunchbox. So, there’s a burden you should carry yourself. Yeah, so this burden is very different here. We are to help those who have burdens that they cannot bear, and those burdens that people ought to bear. It is their responsibility to bear. We would be doing a disservice by carrying it. Yeah. And, and another way we put this is, are you responsible for others or are you responsible to others? And we see this in our language sometimes when we find ourselves using language like, I need to fix this person, or I need to protect this person, or I feel responsible for this person’s behavior or choices, or I can’t stand to see this person make this mistake. That’s being responsible for them, trying to control their behavior in an inappropriate way, as opposed to being responsible to them.  

Where you see language like I can encourage, I can show empathy, I can support, I can help carry that overwhelming burden when it gets to that point. But I am expecting them to be responsible for their own behaviors. You know, as I hear you talk about that too, Arlan, what comes to me is we violate another person’s sovereignty in a sense by taking away their responsibility and trying to be their person for them. Okay? All of that to say that God has created them as a unique person. God has created them for unique purposes. God has created them to feel this way, to think this way, to react in this way, and I cannot be that person for them. Right. To try to be that person for them would be a violation of what God has created them to be. 

And so, I think here’s a lot to what you’re saying here, that we are responsible to them certainly, but not responsible for them. Yeah. And don’t take away the sovereignty of God from them. Right. Don’t try to keep or protect someone from God working through consequences in their lives. 

Now, again, Matt, this is a tension. This is an art. This is not an exact science. This is sometimes hard to actually play out in reality, but it’s important to have that concept in the back of your mind as you think about your interactions with others. Thanks, Arlan. And this is just a good start, I think, to an important conversation about boundaries. 

And I think we’re providing a great deal of hope here that we can engage our world in wise ways, and part of that is in understanding our boundaries. That it allows us first to understand ourselves as God has made us for him. And if we are a believer, a son or daughter of his, and then taking responsibility to what I’m sowing because it ought to be what I’m reaping, and to being responsible to other people, but not for other people. To our listeners, thanks for being with us. We hope that you continue with this series. Please go to our website at accounseling.org and find more resources on topics such as these. We’d also like to put a plug in for our email list. 

We send out emails periodically from the agency. We would love to have you on that list, and you can sign up at our website. At our landing page, there’s a button at the top that says how to receive emails. 

Welcome to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Today I have with me Arlan Miller. Welcome, Arlan. Hi Matt. It’s good to be here again. Arlan, one of the advantages I think we have on this show, is to take what we learn from the agency and from our clinicians and help share it with the church, and one of those predominant concepts, as I understand it, is understanding one’s boundaries and living within them. 

Most definitely, Matt. And this is a concept and an idea that I have heard probably almost more than any since I’ve been here at the agency and a lot of it is born out of a book called Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. And in that book it just brings out some very important principles about what are limits that we should have in our life, and we can get ourselves in a pretty sideways and unhealthy spot when we don’t understand our boundaries and the boundaries of others. And so that’s the topic that we would like to tackle here with this series. 

We want to provide some of that teaching for the church. So, let’s start, I guess, by saying boundaries is a physical word. We understand boundaries in terms of offense and that type of thing. So, let’s bring some clarity to what we mean by a boundary, but what does that look like in life? 

We have limits. We are not limitless beings with unlimited time, unlimited energy, unlimited resources, unlimited, you know, fill in the blank. But God has designed us in a way that there are 24 hours in the day. We need sleep. We need food. We need time to take a break. So, speaking to God’s creation. He has created boundaries, very physical boundaries in terms of what is me and what is not me. 

Boundaries in the sense of his creation and water and sea and land and so on and so forth. And so, we see he has woven that concept in our framework and our fabric, the concept of a boundary. Yeah. And boundaries are definitional, right? You know, who is Arlan and who is Matt, and also often defines a little bit of the purpose of that object. 

Right. And then the other piece of it, those limits allow us to let the good in and keep the bad out. So, we understand that in a physical way of our bodies are that boundary. But now we’re talking about a relationship or we’re talking about emotionally that it is important that a person has appropriate boundaries. 

And so, we’re going to try to provide some of that teaching. Set us up a little bit with some Scripture here. Did Christ live according to boundaries? We don’t want to stray too far from him. We often lean upon a verse like Matthew 5:42,  that says, give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away. 

And we take that verse, and we use it and we say, okay, see if someone asks, I should give. If someone wants me to do something, I should say yes. You know, or we use the example of Epaphroditus in Philippians that was sick, near to death for the work of Christ. And, if we’re not careful, we can elevate that and say that’s the standard of Christian living, and yet if you take the full counsel of the Scriptures, you see there’s another balance there too. You know, Jesus said something very interesting in John 10. He says that no man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it again. 

I have the choice, right? He chose willingly to do the will of the Father, to come to Earth as a baby, and grow into a man and give his life for our sake. It wasn’t forced upon him. And so, we see out of Christ’s life that he understood boundaries and he lived his life according to those boundaries. 

And even his death on the cross was not an offense to his boundaries. He was not reached into and taken, but he extended himself outward for that service. And that’s the image that we want to cast. I think of the verse, it says it’s more blessed to give than to receive. 

It comes off the tongue nice, doesn’t it? But sometimes we would say, or we would experience that giving is causing burnout in my life, giving is causing anxiety in my life, and so we want to redeem that Scripture. We’re not saying that those Scriptures are wrong, we’re saying there is some good teaching about us that sets those Scriptures free. I like to use this. This is one of those terms where we use the word balance and we use the word tension, right? We’re speaking about the balance. How do we live in a balance where we give and receive, and what’s that healthy piece there? And then we realize that this is going to be a tension in our lives.  

We’re not going to solve this a hundred percent and say, okay, I’ve got it figured out. Perfect. You know, here’s my A+ example of boundaries. We’re going to always live in that tension in the world that we live in between, do I do this, or do I not do that? What’s appropriate, what’s not appropriate? And that’s fine. It’s okay to live in tension.  

So, provide a little bit of example. I think sometimes we understand what healthy boundaries are by understanding what unhealthy boundaries are. So why don’t you start there, Arlan. Maybe give us some illustrations. Okay, let me illustrate to you an unhealthy boundary. 

I’d like to use a couple examples of imagery here to help clarify this. So, if you visualize a soap bubble. My kids love to blow those bubbles during the summer and whatnot, and you see those floating way up there and then pretty soon they pop, and they disappear. We can have loose boundaries in that regard, that someone can quickly push into us and say, do this, do that, and we will always say yes. 

We don’t really have very clearly defined standards or a very clear limit on that, and so people can reach into our boundaries in inappropriate ways. And we’re easily ran over. It’s kind of like a chalk line or a line in the sand. So, let’s say I have a curfew of 9:00 PM in our house, and that’s a line in the sand. And then suddenly the kids come back at 9:15, and you say, well, okay, the curfew’s going to be 9:30. 

Okay? And then suddenly the kids come back at 10:00 PM. That line keeps moving and moving and moving. That’s a loose boundary. Well, let’s contrast that then, Matt, with a very rigid boundary. You know, visualize a bowling ball or something very firm, like a concrete wall. Nothing comes in. Nothing goes out. You can’t dent it, you can’t bend it. It is just a fixed boundary, and it is impossible to penetrate. I cannot reach into that boundary without busting my knuckles. Here’s the, the unfortunate thing about that, Matt, is yes, you will keep the bad out, but you also can keep out the good. 

And you can miss opportunities when God could be using you to do certain things because you have just said, Nope, not going to do it. This is my firm concrete wall type boundary. So, there has to be this wise in between. What’s that look like? Think of the gate in a wall. Sometimes it’s open or sometimes it’s closed, and you can open it and let the good in and you can close it and keep the bad out. 

There’s a wise choice there where you are opening and closing as appropriate. Christ had an appropriate boundary whereby he was able to love because he reached out of his own boundary, and he gave voluntarily. And I think that provides a little bit of hope. As I think about those challenging passages about giving to those that ask of us, and it is more blessed to give than receive, even in my own heart, I might say, boy, I haven’t found that to be the case. 

It can be the case with this appropriate boundary. So, we’re suggesting that there is a learning curve to know how to live with appropriate boundaries. They’re not innate and born, they’re not natural. They have to be groomed, and that’s what we want to offer. Right. And maintained too. Because by nature they will erode, and they will be pushed upon. 

What are the steps here? Help us construct these appropriate boundaries. What are some of the teaching points? Knowing yourself is the first principle. Have a firm foundation of who you are and how God has made you, and that makes some intuitive sense to me. If I’m going to build a boundary around my house, I have to know what my property lines are. 

Yeah. The neighbors would like you to be honest with that. Yeah. The city likes to know that too. If you haven’t discovered that zoning is big on that type of thing. Alright, so knowing oneself or having that wherewithal of who I am, where do we go for that definition of self? 

Arlan, I really like to go to Colossians 1 and there’s some great passages in Colossians 1, but very clearly Paul says there, you are made by him, him being God in Christ and for him, we are made by God for God. That’s our identity. That’s an important foundation to establish, Matt, because if we don’t firmly root ourselves in who we are in God’s eyes, we will start to put a mirror in front of ourselves or other people in front of ourselves and say, I am only how I view myself, or I am only how others view me. 

And we’ll start to be controlled by those views. We become subject to our environment. We become a part of that environment rather than us influencing the environment. I think that’s helpful. You and I have both been in the public school setting for a while and we understand peer pressure and that’s not unique to just the school setting, but the image that I get is the crazy things that kids will do because of what other people think. 

We’re not suggesting, Matt, that others’ opinions don’t matter, that we just are kind of our own little person off in our own little bubble, just me and God and we’re good. But what I would argue is that others’ opinions have a limited and appropriate effect on this. They have the right effect. 

I think that’s helpful, and I think that’s exactly the boundary that we want to put in place so that the outside has its proper effect and not too much or too little. Okay. So that is a little bit about knowing ourselves. We’ve gone to God as being the definition, and we see that, and certainly as a believer in Christ, our identity is even more defined as being a son of his. 

And we’re settled which comes from that sonship. It’s the foundation. Be firmly established in who you are and your identity in Christ and then let’s build upon that and think about other levels here. And this also, I think, gives us a perspective of others. As we engage with others, we realize that, whoa, this other person is not just for my use, that other person is for God’s use. Yeah. And then that provides some context for my interaction with people as well. And if they say no, that’s not because it’s a personal attack on me. It could be because they’re saying yes to God in some other area that’s even more appropriate for them and their use and their talents. 

Let’s move on to the next one, then. Taking responsibility for ourselves. What does that look like? You know, this brings in this idea of reaping what you sow. And you’re responsible for reaping what you’re sowing, but you’re not responsible for reaping what someone else is sowing. Okay? So, a red flag should be going up if I am reaping the consequences of another person, that’s not appropriate. 

You know, somewhere those boundaries have gotten skewed or blurred. Those lines have gotten a little bit blurred. So, if my day has just become harried because I’ve got to run my son’s lunch to school because he forgot it. That might be an indicator that I am bearing the consequence of his forgetfulness. 

Right. There needs to be a lesson learned there. And we need to start pushing towards growth in that area. And what lessons would they learn by the natural consequence? Isn’t that what we’re speaking of? The natural consequences are terrific teachers. They’re great teachers and I can be an overprotective parent. 

I have a 2-year-old son, Covenant. And he is at the stage where he gets into everything. And if I’m not careful, I will try to put him in a bubble and protect him until he is 25. I’ll hear myself say, Covenant, don’t eat the dirt, Covenant, don’t slide down the stairs on that cushion, whereas I should carefully figure out the appropriate boundaries so he can learn certain consequences. 

I’m not saying let them go play on a busy street, but I am saying the consequences are teachers. Well, here’s something that you hear a lot. You might have codependence, for example, where you have a young person who is depending on their folks for certain means, right? And sometimes, what we would hear is that the folks might say, well, I’m confronting them. I’m telling them how important it is that they get this, or they get that. But at the end of the day, that confrontation isn’t as good of a teacher as consequence. Right? And that’s hard, man it’s hard. This is a hard spot to be because we love, and we care, and we want to help. 

There are some passages in Galatians that I think are important to think through and process through. Galatians 6 has two verses seemingly contradictory to each other, right in the same context there. Galatians 6:2 says, bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:5 says just a few verses later, for every man shall bear his own burden. 

You read those and you’re like; this is a contradiction. What’s going on here? If you understand though, in the Greek you’ve got two very different words going on there in verse two. Bear one another’s burdens. That word is talking about a boulder, a very large, heavy thing that you can’t carry by itself. 

Whereas in Galatians 6:5 for every man shall bear his own burden. That word is talking about like a nap sack or your daily lunchbox. So, there’s a burden you should carry yourself. Yeah, so this burden is very different here. We are to help those who have burdens that they cannot bear, and those burdens that people ought to bear. It is their responsibility to bear. We would be doing a disservice by carrying it. Yeah. And, and another way we put this is, are you responsible for others or are you responsible to others? And we see this in our language sometimes when we find ourselves using language like, I need to fix this person, or I need to protect this person, or I feel responsible for this person’s behavior or choices, or I can’t stand to see this person make this mistake. That’s being responsible for them, trying to control their behavior in an inappropriate way, as opposed to being responsible to them.  

Where you see language like I can encourage, I can show empathy, I can support, I can help carry that overwhelming burden when it gets to that point. But I am expecting them to be responsible for their own behaviors. You know, as I hear you talk about that too, Arlan, what comes to me is we violate another person’s sovereignty in a sense by taking away their responsibility and trying to be their person for them. Okay? All of that to say that God has created them as a unique person. God has created them for unique purposes. God has created them to feel this way, to think this way, to react in this way, and I cannot be that person for them. Right. To try to be that person for them would be a violation of what God has created them to be. 

And so, I think here’s a lot to what you’re saying here, that we are responsible to them certainly, but not responsible for them. Yeah. And don’t take away the sovereignty of God from them. Right. Don’t try to keep or protect someone from God working through consequences in their lives. 

Now, again, Matt, this is a tension. This is an art. This is not an exact science. This is sometimes hard to actually play out in reality, but it’s important to have that concept in the back of your mind as you think about your interactions with others. Thanks, Arlan. And this is just a good start, I think, to an important conversation about boundaries. 

And I think we’re providing a great deal of hope here that we can engage our world in wise ways, and part of that is in understanding our boundaries. That it allows us first to understand ourselves as God has made us for him. And if we are a believer, a son or daughter of his, and then taking responsibility to what I’m sowing because it ought to be what I’m reaping, and to being responsible to other people, but not for other people. To our listeners, thanks for being with us. We hope that you continue with this series. Please go to our website at accounseling.org and find more resources on topics such as these. We’d also like to put a plug in for our email list. 

We send out emails periodically from the agency. We would love to have you on that list, and you can sign up at our website. At our landing page, there’s a button at the top that says how to receive emails.